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gloom writes "In 2000 the Finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as 'Tempest') won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four-channel Amiga .MOD entitled 'Acid Jazzed Evening.' A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip); it is this that was stolen. The producer's name is Timbaland and he is one of the hottest names in American music these days. The track in question is called 'Do it' and it is featured on the Nelly Furtado album 'Loose' on the Geffen label. Getting nowhere with Geffen, the demoscene has now risen to the aid of Tempest, first by creating a stir at SomethingAwful (files downloadable from the forum), then at Digg.com, then on YouTube, with a video demonstrating the blatant ripoff. Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Well... Define "influential"...

If you consider music sales [msn.com] Rock music is more popular than Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B and Urban combined. If you look at critical acclaim Rap music has only been receiving critical acclaim and awards (outside of specific genre awards) in the past 5 or so years.

And what does it matter if a musical style has been "influential" if the initial argument was that it was unoriginal? You can be very generic (and even steal other people's ideas) and still be "influential".

it was fine in the begining but using the same baseline from a disco song from 30 years ago only twisted and distorted and passing it off as "music" can't really be considered music.

I'm not denying that rappers can rap really well but I can't stand the "music" they use for it, don't get me started on emo lyrics or the scream metal stuff either (where they figure it's ok to just constently scream into the mic and pass it off as a tale

Wrong. Hip-hop is an all-encompassing culture, a movement started in New York City by inner city Hispanics and African Americans. Hip-hop traditionally consists of 4 "elements": DJ'ing (originally the backbone of hip-hop culture), Emceeing (rapping), Breakdancing, and Graffiti.

Originally, rap was the combination of an emcee rhyming over a DJ's beat. An emcee's job was originally to get the crowd more into the music the DJ was playing, hence the title (derived from MC, or Master of Ceremonies).

Through the late 90's, rap was simply called rap. Somewhere along the way, around the transition from the "jiggy era" to the Cash Money dominated southern sound of the mainstream, fans of underground rap music and conscious early 90's rap started referring to anything that was not mainstream as "hip-hop music", in an effort to differentiate "good" rap from "bad" rap"

Only recently have radio stations and music channels that typically play mainstream style rap referred to the music that they play as "hip-hop". This has prompted many people to revert to referring to the music they like as "rap" in backlash, to express their disappointment to the direction popular rap artists have taken musically (focusing more on simple beats and rhymes in efforts to appeal to pop crowds and club scenes).

Not to go too far OT, but Hip hop and Rap are actually the same thing as far as the actual pop-cultural relation to them are concerned. To be technical, Hip Hop refers to the entire culture, including things one might not generally think of such as fashion and speach. We used to refer to the four elements of hip hop: graffiti, breakdancing, DJing, and MCing (a.k.a. rapping), which in its early forms was actually subservient to DJing. Nowadays, MCing has moved overwhelmingly to the forefront, as the other elements have become more diluted, diversified, and hybridized (beatboxing could be seen as a more recently formalized and popularized hybrid of MCing and DJing, though it's generally been around for almost as long as hip hop itself). Now Hip Hop dance includes a lot more than just breakdancing, graffiti is much less popular (probably because it's not quite so marketable being illegal in nature).

Since Rap has taken such a dominant role, nowadays whenever someone says "hip hop" they're generally talking about Rap, but to refer to the two things as though they were different musical genres is a fallacy. People think that the subject matter of the songs determines the genre (rap being the sole property of gangster rappers, and all other forms falling under some other umbrella of "hip hop"). In truth, they're all hip hop, and rapping is what they all do. It's just a matter of what they rap about that determines the subgenre (gangster, etc.).

I find the people who try to argue that Hip Hop and Rap are different are generally people who don't listen to it much, or only listen to 3 or 4 artists and then declare themselves expert.

What you have listed there are not musical genres in order of their influence, but probably more in order of your own personal preference or encounterance (which is self-select no doubt, and very much anecdotal). You get outside of the US and Germany, and you'll find Metal drops off the list fairly quickly (and even within those countries, I doubt you'd ever find it that high on any list). Country barely has an influence the farther in any direction you go from midwestern or Southern America before you even hit the borders, much less outside the country. Disco, come on, really? And whatever "Movie Classical" is. But, you go anywhere in the world from as far back as the mid to early 90's, and hip hop was already ubiquitous, from the American brand that gets exported in abundance to the various local flavors that grew up on their own. We're talking from France to Japan to Zimbabwe here I might add.

But listing music in order of influence is also kind of fallacious, since all music is generally organic, and all genres have influenced and been influenced by others. If Disco has a great influence on modern hip hop, and hip hop is very popular, is it fair to say that Disco is the genre that's truly influential or hip hop itself? What if you could say the same for any other musical genre's influence on hip hop and vice-versa? Hip hop, at its very roots, is an assimilator, and has been growing due to its ability to absorb other musical genre's influences into itself seamlessly. From the earliest DJs mixing and remixing established Pop, Disco, and R&B tracks on turntables, to the modern mashups, this has always been a core element of Hip Hop.

Quite frankly, the competition of "my genre of choice is more popular/influential than yours" is a bit ridiculous, because it's not like popularity is the sole legitimizer of an art form. In most cases, it means the destruction of creativity in favor of formulaic nonsense and posers taking over and steering the future of the genre, which is what has happened to most of modern popular hip-hop. One should be happy while their genre or artist of choice remains in relative obscurity, because that is the place where they can enjoy the most creativity; even if it means other more popular and successful performers end up sampling or outright stealing their work.

80's rock, hair metal, grunge, to name a few.Hell, I'd wager that Van Halen (both the band and Eddie Van Halen himself) have been at least as influencial to the music industry as most rap/hip-hop artists out today combined. They not only brought about the beginnings of rock and metal in the 80's, popularizing guitar heroes like no one before, but Eddie redefined how to play the guitar (yes, many, if not most of his popular techniques have been used before, but he popularized them like no other) and redefine

Hell, I'd wager that Van Halen (both the band and Eddie Van Halen himself) have been at least as influencial to the music industry as most rap/hip-hop artists out today combined. They not only brought about the beginnings of rock and metal in the 80's, popularizing guitar heroes like no one before, but Eddie redefined how to play the guitar (yes, many, if not most of his popular techniques have been used before, but he popularized them like no other) and redefined the guitar itself (not many people before h

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Rock, jazz, classical.. hell even techno! Oh.. sorry.. being Slashdot I thought you meant for folks with IQs above say 110-120 or so. If you're talking about the "mildly retarded" range (i.e. can install a fart cannnon muffler without killing himself approximately 60% of the time), then yes, hip hop.

My main gripe about all of this is this:

A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip

You probably just don't have the right ear for it. If it was only the intro then I'd be dismissing it. It's not an exact copy and I'd bet you could find a few thousand pieces of music with those notes in there - it even sounded familiar to me! The melody is what is so interesting. It seriously sounds like the exact tune playing in the background - the notes are the same and even the drum beat (though it's a pretty common beat) seems to be the same.

I'd have to listen to proper high-quality versions of both to decide whether I think it's a true forgery though. If there's more of the original in the supposed forgery then that would be more evidence, but note how the tune in the intro could be easily derived from the melody - I would only put the intro being there as a minor evidence boost.

Am I the only one who is hearing the same 4 chords and the same basic beat? What exactly was stolen? Everyone was playing the same god-damn chords and the beat for the last 20 years.

I must admit I was a little curious after watching the Youtube version - but then the sound quality on that is so poor anyway. Going to the forum and listening to original mp3s it becomes a little more clear - what you should be listening for is in the background of the Furtado song; if you listen you can actually hear precisely

What I don't understand is why this isn't going to court. I read the posts in SA by okkie and his

"He talked with a lawyer, he told me it would become time consuming and horrible. Record companies like Geffen have teams of lawyers and he would basically stand alone. Sad but true."

But a number of cases have happened like this, if it can be demonstrated at some reasonable level, I am sure that they could win. After all, there is a history of things like this in entertainment. I agree, it would be a long

Nelly Furtado's a freaking Portugese CANADIAN. Where did they get Australian from??/Canadian

Most of us can barely find Canada on the map even though it's our 51st state; let alone figure out where some small island in the Pacific is located so we naturally assume anyone that speaks English and is from the Pacific is Australian. But at least we know Lisboa is Australa's capital; and if you look closely enough at a map of Europe you can find Australia nestled between germany and Hungary.What I find odd is that her last name is Furtado - that doesn't sound very Australian since they speak English, not Spanish.

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done. It's not piracy. Piracy is when you download Nelly Furtado's album.

Outright theft is when someones work is stolen and passed off as your own FOR PROFIT.

And it's also a great example of the disparity in the legal system. This guy has been completely ripped off, and basically can't afford to take it to court, because Geffen are richer than him.

One world, under a dollar, with justice for none except the corporations.

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done.

True, sampling without permission outside a context of parody is wrong. But what if I steal and I don't know I'm stealing? How could George Harrison have caught himself and stopped himself from ripping off "He's So Fine", written by Ronald Mack and popularized by The Chiffons, when writing "My Sweet Lord"? See Cryptomnesia [wikipedia.org].

Then you say "oops, I goofed up", pay royalties if necessary, credit the orignal version, and life moves on. You probably take a credibility hit for a few weeks, then people decide your version was better anyway.

If you burn a CD from a friend, the copyright holders lose one sale, ASSUMING you would otherwise have bought the CD. In aggregate, the cost to the copyright holder is far less than one sale per burned CD.

If you buy a counterfeit CD, then the formula is the same (the copyright holders lose the value of the sale assuming you would otherwise have bought the CD), but the cost to the copyright holder is at least what you paid for the counterfeit CD. This makes it a lot easier to show monetary damages in c

I find it interesting that Slashdotters, for some reason, draw the line at making money off of someone else's work. Stealing it is okay, but selling it afterward is crossing the line?

There are two definitions of steal that seem appropriate to this discussion

To take (the property of another) without right or permission.

To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Now the first definition is what you're applying to downloading, but a lot of people have problems calling 'Downloading' 'Stealing' because the owner of the music does not lose possession of the property and you (typically) have been given permission to obtain the music through other channels; you can tape music off of the radio for personal use and most albums will have (at least locally) been played on the radio when they're released.

The second definition is directly related to what has been claimed that timbaland has done.

There is room for debate on the download and no room for debate on the Timbaland situation.

Actually Internet conventional wisdom is fairly unpredictable when it comes to copyright.

Case 1: Metallica vs the Internet

Metallica, a pasty white but decidedly non nerdy metal band complain about people stealing their music.

Slashdot: LOL, retards. Information wants to be free. Musicians should make money from live gigs + It's copyright infringement not stealing. Stealing is when you take something physical away from someone, like when a mugger took my iRiver full of Metallica songs.

Case 2: Someone uses GPL code in a non GPL product

Slashdot: OMG Stealing! Mailbomb them back to the stoneage!

Case 3: Pasty white Mac fans remix music, get sued

BoingBoing: Information wants to be free. DRM eats babies!

Case 4: A rich black man uses 4 chords from nerdy white guys

Slashdot: ZOMG! Stealing! Plagiarism!

I'd say that the background of the two parties is more important than any deep principle.

Disclaimer: Conventional Wisdom determined by reading comments until I got a headache, not a representative sample.

Years ago I used to work at a music publishing company as a tape copier / runner, one of the regular jobs was making "comparison tapes" - ten seconds of one of our tracks, ten seconds from a possible copyright-infringing tune. Anyone out there got New Order's "Republic" andMassive Attack's "Blue Lines"? Listen to the string breakdown at the end of "Special" -- around 4'10" (yes I'm checking!) Now go listen to "Unfinished Sympathy". Eerie, huh?

The real problem here isn't that he built on someone else's work. That's just copying, and although copying without permission might be illegal in many cases, most of us realize it isn't unethical or immoral.

No, the real problem is that he didn't give credit. He's committing fraud against everyone who hears or buys the song, because he's claiming (at least implicitly) that he wrote the parts which he actually copied. Fraud is immoral, unethical, and illegal.

FFS keep this quiet!.... The RIAA (regular readers of/. I'm sure) will take notice and somehow manage to construct a legal argument meaning Timberlake gets to sue the Finnish artist for more than than the GDP of Finland. 7th Dimensional Copyright Theory or something.
Wouldn't be the first time.

That's the thing about the demo scene: it's not about royalties or profit, it's about the art. When someone rips that off and starts charging others for it (without so much as even giving you credit for all your work), it's completely against everything the work was originally composed for. It's like you get a gift for your kids and some jerk steals it from you, re-wraps it, and sells it to your brother as the perfect gift for his nieces/nephews.

The demo scene is soooo old. It springs from the 286 and earlier. At that point in time the only license that was imposed was the honor system, enforceable only by defamation. I have countless mods/s3ms/xms that have comments/descriptions griping about people that ripped samples or patterns, and that was all that they could do. Now rights are a much more legally enforced thing. Artists in the demo-scene haven't (in many circles) really buckled down and started choosing licenses because legal issues wer

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you only need a license if you plan to let others use your work in some way, shape or form? You are protected by Copyright law without a license and there are no exceptions. Licenses provide any general exceptions you want to give.

Demoscene people generally have a very small set of people they even want to hear their music. There's some live events and a few websites and that's it.

Its cool man, I understand you not getting the joke. After all I forgot the question mark. What I was getting at is that the RIAA trys to take down any video that violates their copywrights. I believe a famous Slashdotter once said,"If you have to explain the joke, its not that funny."

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research. </rant>

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research. ... and act like you're an expert on the matter, like the rest of us!

From the Wikipedia: In the early years, demos had a strong connection with software cracking. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit via an increasingly impressive-looking graphical introduction called a "crack intro". Later, the making of intros and standalone demos evolved into a new subculture independent of the software piracy scene.

IMO this is a good appropriation of the material in the spirit of "rhyming and stealing" that both hip-hop and the demo scene spawn f

Rappers have usually cleared their samples since De La Soul got sued in the late eighties. On most CD covers there's some fine print stating where each sample came from, citing the original artist and song.

The only difference here is that he didn't actually take a direct recording, he "just" did a recording with his own instruments to make it sound just like the original. Which might be legal. After all, covers are legal.

But yeah, I'd like to see the original artist get some money from this too.

"...what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

None. Didn't you get the memo? Information wants to be free. Welcome to the world without copyright. Look at it another way, now more people have heard about Janne 'Tempest' Sunni so he'll be able to sell more records at his next show.

See, that would be an acceptable answer if the label Timbaland is signed to didn't go around suing people. But the major labels and their artists can't come out against piracy while coming worse infringements themselves.*

A world without copyright doesn't have to be a world with plagiarism. Copy freely, but give credit - to do otherwise, to claim that you wrote something that was actually written by someone else (or vice versa), is fraud.

Basically it works this way: If you're involved in the demoscene, you don't have to worry about stealing because your colleagues will happily mob lynch thieves like this for you. If not then you'd better have a big fanbase.

A quick browse of the Wikipedia webpage on sampling shows a number of cases where artists have been sued for sampling, so the best thing is to get yourself a lawyer who will direct you towards a good license that allows you to share your work non-commercially. If someone violates that license, you can then get that lawyer to go after them. The history of sampling cases seems to show that artists will pay you off so they don't risk a trial.

And that finnish artist...she should bring Timbaland to court in Finland. She definitely has a case against him, especially since she has prior art to back up her case.

Additionally, the album was likely sold by an entity in Finland as it did reach #13 on the charts there. Most likely the publishing company has a local presence that the assets can be taken from. Assuming of course that Finland has similar laws to the U.S. Of course he could always find a lawyer in the U.S. that would bring the suit in the U.S. where it would almost undoubtedly win. The downside to that is how much does the lawyer get? Probably 40-60%.

As long as they are ours.. That's basically the message that the Universal Music Group (of which Geffen Records is part) is sending. Its so typical of the corporate world (I'd say Corporate America, but I don't think its better elsewhere), they so much apply double standards when it comes to the law.. They are saying, we can steal from you, we can kill you, we can invade your country, we can infringe your copyrights, but if you dare to do one tenth of what we do, then its going to be terrible for you.So any

Being an online-posting musician myself -- what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me?

Don't worry. It won't.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Anyway, they're not going to get anywhere bitching to Geffen. No corporation is going to admit wrongdoing if they aren't forced to. Spreading the info on the web is good for their cause but really, "Tempest" has to get a good lawyer.

Keep in mind the only thing you can go after in the music industry is rights and roylaties. You won't get a big cash payout if an indie band steals your melody or worse, if another amateur slaps his name on your song. All you can do is make a fuss and possibly ruin their credibility. This would even go for a major label act with an album that doesn't sell-- if there's no money to be had there's not much you can do.

Now, Furtado's album will probably sell millions, so "Tempest" has a shot at getting the publishing rights for the song. But to get this resolved he will have to get a competent entertainment lawyer who will work on a (large) commision. Then, if they settle or he wins, he may be able to get the writer credit (or shared credit) on subsequent pressings of the song and all or part of the roylaties-- not on the album, but the song itself (so a fraction of the album.. a small fraction if it is not a hit.) And when I say roylaties, I'm not talking gross sales but instead what Timbaland's cut would have been.

Again, unless the song itself is a top-ten hit, I would not expect a big payday from this.

I personally don't care two toilets full of crap how Nelly Furtado's career turns out, but I DO CARE what the RIAA et al do about this type of situation. Here they have the perfect opportunity to show the youth of the world that copying is NOT okay... OR... they can demonstrate first hand how it IS OK to copy people's work.WWNFD? Can we get some bracelets printed up now? You only have to wear them when you're downloading MP3s off the Internet. Oh, please make them pink with ponies on them too.

This guy makes them money. Hell, they will probably sue the person who put the YouTube clip together for copyright infringement and breaking some anti-copying scheme on her shitty CD. The RIAA will never look out for the little guy, ever. Of course, you already knew that:)

"In 2000 the Finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as 'Tempest') won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four-channel Amiga.MOD entitled 'Acid Jazzed Evening.' A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip); it is this that was stolen."1. How is it that the latter was stolen, but the former wasn't?

2. How do we know the "evidence" wasn't fabricated?2a. Are you sure I won't find something suspiciously similar in my

Lifting and rearranging (i.e. "stealing") a tune is not sampling. If the Timbaland recording is the first published use of the song, and the use is unauthorized, then it is copyright infringement plain and simple. If it is not the first published use of the song, then there are two possibilities: a) the re-recording is a "cover" of the original, essentially similar to it, in which case compulsory licensing applies (and royalties are paid to the copyright holder at a rate defined by statute), or b) the re-recording is different enough that it is a derivative work, in which case compulsory licensing does not apply and once again it is simple copyright infringement. The copyright holder can force a halt to the infringement; what damages might be obtained in court, I don't know - the law isn't simple.

This is US law - I don't know what country's laws would actually apply in this case.

Dimmu Borgir [wikipedia.org], a Norwegian Black Metal group, ripped a song from the Amiga game "Agony", composed by Tim Wright. The original was a beautiful piano piece [titan12.free.fr] that you could listen to in the title screen. The band stole the melody and used it in the song "Sorgens Kammer [altayre.free.fr]" ("The Chamber of Sorrow" in Norwegian).

They never acknowledged the ripoff, simply substituting the song with another one in the album. Pathetic.

Sample to your hearts content without permission, if you have a winner, then you pay for the license. It looks like Timbaland just forgot the last part. If the song never gets released and popular, no harm no foul right? But if you have a winner you'll be able and happy to pay for the license, so it is a no brainer to sample without permission, until you want to release it. Of course this only seems to work for those with the ability to make money off a release (big record labels), independent musicians without the exposure and protection of a big label probably won't be able to pay off the copyright holder anyway.

But Tempest is right, there is no way this'd be worth it to fight. For example Talib Kweli recently violated Ben Kweller's copyright (or more likely his label's copyright) from the song "In Other Words". Kweller replied at the end episode 7 of his youtube show One Minute Pop Song. [youtube.com] If a fairly well known artist, Ben Kweller, can't fight it, someone like Tempest has pretty poor chances.

Home sampling is probably fair use, but certainly using a sample on a record is not. If Timbaland samples Tempest at home, I think that is great. If Timbaland wants to include it on an album, there has to be some kind of recourse for the little guy covering such obvious infringement. You know if Tempest released an album (even just on the internet) sampling Timbaland the RIAA would be all over it with Lawyers. Remember The Grey Album [wikipedia.org]?

I've really enjoyed a lot of the Popcap games available for PDAs, especially since a lot of their optional background music seems eerily familiar from my downloaded mod files (many are available from Nectarine radio nowadays: http://www.demoscene.net/ [demoscene.net] )

Boy, if you ever thought a large number of/. commenters were flat out stupid (as opposed to ones who just disagree with you), following that link to YouTube will certainly make you feel much better about/. commenters!

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Janne Suni's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Acid Jazzed Evening" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

The trance song "Kernkaft 400" by Zombie Nation was a major hit in Europe in the late 90s, and quite obviously sampled from a Commodore 64 song. They were eventually forced to share writing credit with the original musician, David Whittaker, and pay a share of their royalties accordingly. I hope this ends up the same way.

Maybe it costs nothing to make in the first place, then it should be free, but this is never the case. Costing nothing to copy doesn't justify the copying in itself. Those trying to earn a living making creative works would have a much harder time doing so if other people can simply copy their works and not contribute to the artist's livelihood.There's also a difference between taking from historical works and taking contemporary works. That distinction is in the limited ownership of works. If Geffen, a

United States law recognizes no such thing as "intellectual property". Federal law recognizes copyrights, and it recognizes patents, and it recognizes trademarks. Uniform state law recognizes trade secrets, and law in some states recognizes rights of publicity. The five areas of law have in common that they establish exclusive rights of some form, but these government-granted privileges are more different than similar and, according to many critics, not worthy to be grouped under the umbrella term "intelle [gnu.org]

according to many critics, not worthy to be grouped under the umbrella term "intellectual property".

They are not deeds to land (real property), nor are they tangible or tradeable items (personal property), but rather artificial monopolies granted upon otherwise entirely reproducible things. Grouping them together makes exactly as much sense as grouping the right to pump oil from the ground with an installed air-conditioner (real property) or a certificate of stock with a turkey sandwich (personal property)

And before you go off and start flapping your gums anyway, i dont believe in copyright, patents or the concept of IP in general. As far as I'm concerned, once a 'object' is released into the world for consumption, you lose all rights to it and it belongs to 'the people'.Fortunately, your beliefs and concerns don't matter.

And you would be completely, utterly wrong. Please, get out of the dorm room and get a job in the real world. I'm sure you wouldn't want to do a day's work of coding and then not have your boss pay you because "you lose all rights to anything you put out into the world."

Well, rights mean very little if you can't enforce them. And that really is the crux of the problem. The big music studios have the rights to their music (well, that of their captive artists, anyway.) What they've lost (and will never fully regain) is the ability to control that distribution.

Why? It's pretty much the partyline that Slashdotters put out in every piracy article. Not to troll, but come on.

Ummmm. No. You're trolling. The only thing you have left to do is say "I know I'll get modded down for this but....".

You are conflating two different things together to create a straw man. The Gnutella/Limewire/eMule type of copyright infringement is about getting a copy of something without paying for it. That issue is surely a mess and I'm not arguing any of its sides now. Limewiring

Please listen to what's behind the links before posting the first thing that comes to mind. It's not just a similarity - much less simple influence. It's an exact match all the way from the melody down to the bass and drum lines and the synth samples.

We like opinions here on Slash, but where do you get your 99.99% figure?

I agree. Life isn't fair. However, when a musician uses a sample (For example Moby, or Paul Oakenfold), they do have to list where the copyrighted sample comes from. Most of that stolen work you refer to is for hobbyist who don't make millions on a track, therefore you don't notice it as much. Timberland thought he could save a few pennies by putting his name on it because some Fin isn't going to make a racket. I guess he was wrong.

If your music is so bad that Timbaland is producing a copy of it, you should take up mime or tiddlywinks as a means of creative expression.

Consider Nelly Furtado: Intelligent, talented, creative musician who has been turned into a shite-generating whore. All thanks to Timbaland.

The person who made the original song cares. People who support justice care. Whether you like Timbaland or not doesn't enter into it. This is a question of principle.

Maybe we should just rewrite copyright law. "It is illegal to use media without permission from the original author, that is, unless the one doing the plaguarising is someone whom Slashdot user swordgeek doesn't like."

It's the "consumers" (i. e. "the people") who granted the music companies their copyrights anyway. If they're not going to abide by the terms of the agreement, why shouldn't the people be allowed to revoke their copyright privileges?

Why I am not surprised to see that the very forum that applauded the release of the Grey Album by Danger Mouse now thinks that sampling and mixing is bad?

Tell me about it. And just last week I noticed that one Slashdotter supported the Democrats but another Slashdotter supported the Republicans. And the week before that I saw two Slashdotters who disagreed over climate change. It's as if Slashdotters have started having differences of opinion all of a sudden. I'm sure that's never happened before. About a year ago we all said and thought exactly the same things.

Something that I still haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet is that the producer is usually not the songwriter. Sometimes they are, but frequently they are not. Who is credited with writing the song? They're the ones you all should be going after. The producer usually deals with overseeing the recording, orchestration, mixing, etc. But a lot of times, the chord progression, melody, lyrics, etc are already mostly in place before the producer gets into the picture.